I hadn't been to a concert in an arena since I don't know when. I was shocked at the price for parking - $20!! Yikes! Seriously - is that REALLY necessary? And I thought it was bad back when they charged $10!!
We arrived early for the concert - about 5:50 pm because there was some confusion as to when it actually started. The tickets said 7:30 pm, but on line it said 7:00 pm. We didn't know if maybe they had an opening act at 7:00, so we opted to get there early. So early that the doors weren't even open yet! So a policeman told us where to form a line (behind the doors, please), and we did what the nice officer told us to do. We were the second group in line. There were cops everywhere; directing traffic, standing around outside the arena, looking important.
The woman behind me said dryly, "I doubt they have to worry about a riot with THIS crowd!"
That was certainly true. The average age was AT LEAST 50.
The doors opened at 6:30 pm and we made our way up to the balcony. Of course by this time I had to use the restroom, which was conveniently located near our seats, then we grabbed a snack because we hadn't eaten any dinner. Another shock to my system. A pretzel and bottle of water? $8.50
Finally we got to our seats. Even though we were in the balcony section, they weren't bad seats. The stage was in the center of the floor and moved 360 degrees. Plus with the jumbotron screens, pretty much every seat was good.
Before long the seats began to fill up. Two women sat behind us. I thought they were mother and daughter, but found out later that they were just friends. I pegged the woman, let's call her Dorothy, shall we? to be around 60, 65. Linda thought that Dorothy was younger. That's all I know is that Dorothy got on my last nerve. Usually I can talk to anybody and tolerate pretty much anybody. Not Dorothy.
She struck up a conversation with us. Then she would not shut up. Even if we didn't turn around. (I never turned my head since she was sitting right behind me.) She continued to talk, in this grating voice, about how sick she had been, with a collapsed lung or two, puss filling in-between the lungs (yes, this while I was eating my $5 pretzel), how she has fibromyalgia, and so on and so on....By this time she just sounded like fingernails on the blackboard to me.
I WANTED to turn around and say, "Why don't you just shut your pie hole?"
What I DID was, when she took a breath, finally, I leaned over and started a conversation with my sisters. They had such a look of relief on their faces!
It was 7:20 and I thought I'd better go to the bathroom one last time before the concert. I quickly ducked out and saw that the line was at least 30 women deep. What's up with that? The men's bathroom? No line. Crap. So I just turned myself around and went back to my seat. Pee-pee be damned!
The concert didn't start till 7:40 pm, so the tickets should have read 7:30ish
Oh the excitement to see these two great musicians walk on stage!
Did you know that Carole King is 68 years old? I.Kid.You.Not. She looks great.
She danced around the stage on heels, wiggling her butt, clapping her hands, jumping around - she was just unbelievable.
I leaned over and said to Linda, "I hope I can be this active when I'M 68!"
"Get Real!" Linda replied. "You don't even do that NOW!"
Like Randy Jackson says on American Idol, "Just keeping it real, dog."
James Taylor is 62 years old, and although he's lost almost all his hair from his hippie days, his voice is still like buttah.
I don't remember if this was the song or not, but Dorothy and her cohort stood and flicked their Bics, while other people just flicked their phones (it's the millennium people!) I was so afraid ole Dorothy was going to drop her Bic on my product-filled hairdo and that I would go up in flames and run down the stairs like Richard Pryor running down the block on fire. That oughta get JT/CK's attention!
Pam leaned over and said, "I bet about 95% of this audience was stoned when this song first came out."
Carole's voice (we're on a first name basis don't cha know) was clear as a bell, and still had that "roughness" to it at times. Brought me right back to my high school days. Aahhh.....
Oh yeah, at one point, Dorothy yelled at the top of her lungs, "CK YOU ROCK!" My eyes just about popped out of my head.
Hope you enjoyed a little bit of the concert with me, and look at the money you saved!! And the BEST part? No Dorothy!
If I had known she'd be sitting behind me, I could have hired the Wicked Witch of the West to fly over the arena and write,
GO HOME DOROTHY!!
Note: None of the videos above were mine. The person(s) who took them had better seats than me, so I used their videos. The following video is mine. I recorded the complete version of Carolina in My Mind. The picture isn't great but the sound is good.
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James Taylor /
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